


Stranger Than [Fan] Fiction

by Sherb42



Category: Star Trek, Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: 'The Borg' is a gang and Lore in involved with it, I'm really able to just post whatever I want on this site. huh., Jazz Music, MLP References, Metafiction, Modern Era, Multi, One-sided Qcard (Take a guess as to what side), Riker is a cop
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2020-07-14
Packaged: 2020-10-24 16:54:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 12,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20709392
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherb42/pseuds/Sherb42
Summary: University lecturer Jean-Luc Picard is struggling with getting a story that he’s had bubbling away in mind all his life, a science fiction serial based on the journey of the Space Patrol's flagship the ‘USS Venture-D,’ out from being just a lingering concept and into a proper manuscript. When he starts to see the bridge officers from the ship from the story in his everyday life, Picard believes that he’s starting to go crazy – and when a god-like being going by ‘Q’ appears out of nowhere and informs him the events of the series are all real and he's actually the Captain, he knows that he’s cracked for sure.An alternative summary: The characters of a modern!AU fanfiction realize that they are in said fanfiction with the help of an omnipresent being that was never meant to be included in the story in the first place.[This is a work in progress, any comments, critiques, and other such interactions would be greatly appreciated.]





	1. The Alternate Universe

Let me try and set the scene for you.

A bit of an ‘Everywheresville’ city, modern-day - and by modern-day I mean somewhere in the early 2020s, but its’ really of an ‘eh, whenever you’re reading this’ setting. People have phones and laptops, but that’s all that’s really important to the story. It was somewhere in the middle of the year, around the time that the first assignments of the university semester were being handed in. It was night time, but it wasn’t too late to do anything. It was the sort of night that you walk out into when going to see a late-night movie or to hang out with a friend.

Jean-Luc Picard was not a man who had a very fast life – that much was known. He was the type of person to come home from work and grade papers while watching public access tv. On some Tuesdays, when he had the time to spare, he would make his way down to a jazz club a short drive away and listen to the regulars perform. This is not a story that partakes all that much to this shared establishment, but it will come back soon enough. Picard was an older man, but the guesses as to how old varied widely for the sake of varying. 

Our story will fully commence during Picard’s drive home from the club, but before that, his is listing to the band at the jazz club playing, sipping some Earl Grey tea. Usually, he drank while he was there for the late-night performances, but he had to drive home and perform two lectures in the morning, so he wasn't. The people who ran the bar didn’t seem to mind, he was a steady regular and wasn’t at all the only person there who just had tea or coffee instead.

A trombone solo played, the soloist had clearly spent a lot of time working on getting his part right. He was an oddly tall man with a black beard and short hair to match. His shirt seemed to be blue silk that only came together halfway down his chest, letting dark chest hair peak out as if he had just come out of the mid-1980s and missed a memo on the way here. Picard thought he looked like he was in his pajamas, but would never have said that out loud.

This was the first time that Picard had seen this man play, either he was new to the Tuesday night showcasing or usually performed at other venues. The soloist finished and bowed with the rest of his band, the patrons of the club gave them all a round of applause. “Thank you! Thank you!” he said with a soft laugh, voice with a clear American accent. The group started up another song, a faster tempo this time.

Picard scribbled something bitterly onto an open notebook. He used to work out notes on napkins, just having a notebook with him seemed like a much more efficient way to go about it.

‘Commander Riker – get rid of the trombone.’ Said the note. It wasn’t a bad note, to say, but there was a sense of frustration etched into it.

The band kept on playing, the trombone player loving his time in the spotlight as Picard finished some hot chips. Once the song was over the band took a short break with everybody grabbing drinks of water and chatting amongst themselves. Everybody except the trombonist, who went straight to the bar with a smile. He talked with the bartender for a bit, the bartender laughed at something that the trombonist had said to him as he wiped down a glass. The bartender looked a tad older than he was and had a bright red bowtie; this man will be important later, but you shouldn't worry about him for now. 

“William,” the trombonist introduced with his hand out to shake, or to give a business card, it was hard to tell what he was exactly doing with his hands since his back was to Picard. Picard watched him. Not because he practically wanted to, but because he was perfectly aligned by where he was seated that he was doing it by default. “William Riker, but you can call me any ti-,” he tried to finish it with a wink, but couldn’t get that far before laughing at his own cheesy pickup line. The bartender matched the laugh – a very favorable outcome, all things considered.

Picard looked down at his notebook. He must have heard Riker’s name before in passing, that’s why he had used it. Picking up the pen, Picard flicked back to the start of the notebook and crossed out something, putting in a note beside it. Of course, he could probably leave it all as it was, but that didn’t feel right to do. The ‘Commander Riker’ character that he had created even _looked_ like the real Riker. With another sigh, he scribbled out the entire character away and just put a simple ‘:(‘ next to it as if he was grading a paper he had read word-for-word online already.

To say his idea of the fictional space commander seemed to be a direct translation of the trombonist would be an understatement. If both appeared side by side you could describe them exactly the same – aside from the fact that the real Riker wasn’t in a Star Patrol uniform. It was strange, this hadn’t even been the first time it had happened this week - that was the most annoying part of it all. The day before Picard had been talking to a fellow teacher of his that taught engineering on a different campus and two star students were brought up. The whole time he was cursing himself about it instead of listing to what he was being told.

Picard was getting old early – he could feel his memory staring to slip around. Maybe he needed a holiday or two once the semester was over. Maybe somewhere nice and hot, that seemed like a good idea.

Riker and his band started up again with a new song. Picard tried to focus on the music, but he was having trouble doing it. The frowny face he had drawn seemed to suck any enjoyment he could have been having from the music right out of him. He got up as the pianist started her solo, tucking the notebook under his arm and giving the empty teacup to the same bartender that Riker had just finished flirting with. The bartender gave him a smile, and Picard gave him a nod of thanks before he headed towards the stairs to climb his way out.

* * *

The crisp night air had a familiar warmth to it, the light pollution from the club bleeding out in neon out into the street with heaving shadows. He looked over at the city shining in all its glory, the area that hosted the club on a hill that allowed the city to be seen from above. Picard looked up at what little stars he could make out with a sigh. _He should have been an astronomer,_ he often thought. He could get lost in them for hours on end, but he knew that he was to stay on Earth for the rest of his life. _Born too late to explore the seas, born too early to explore the stars. _

Instead, Picard explored the past. He had worked as an archaeologist years ago, and now worked as a teacher on the subject. He didn’t really know why he went into teaching, but after years of being a project leader for dig sites for decades on end, he needed a change. Teaching gave him more work to do, but he likes the work. It was quite a fulfilling carrier to have, and he was lucky to have it and wouldn't change it for anything.

Picard’s car was an older one, but it was still in tip-top shape. He unlocked the door and got into the driver’s seat before reaching down to a black canvas laptop bag and put the notebook in a with a pile of half a dozen more of them of around the same size. Picard had gotten them in a bulk pack – they all had pictures of cats on them.

Maybe they weren’t his first choice of notebook, but they were on a clearance sale at the end of a ‘back to school’ event and he thought they had a charm about them. Picard would be lying if he said that he didn’t at least think fondly about the covers.

Picard began to drive, the streetlights showing in romantic drapes as the sound of the club’s jazz music faded away and was replaced with that of a main road. It wasn’t a rainy night, nor was it one that would have any thunder. Yet, Picard still saw and heard some as he drove along.

He came to a stoplight.

There was a ping. It didn’t come from somewhere exactly – more like everywhere at once. Picard’s attention snapped away from the road, he looked around for it before lying back in his seat in the understanding that he had simply imagined the entire thing.

The light turned green, Picard checked his rear-view mirror as he drove away.

There was a man in the back seat.

Caucasian, and looked like he was in his early middle ages - and no seat belt. Wild hair that seemed to be wild for the sake of fighting off the beginnings of balding and eyes that seemed like they somehow both belonged to an elderly man and a newborn baby at the same time.

He was in a loose, hydrophobic jacket, one that one might have on in the winter. There was also a t-shirt that seemed too big with what looked like a My Little Pony character on it and a polo under it, the collar popped. He had Jeans that looked they had seen better days and colourful running shoes on. He honestly looked like he had dressed himself by looking at the first magazine that he could find and copying an outfit to be in from it, but that magazine was from 2003 that was trying to bring the 80's back. He was clearly the type of man who could only dress himself in either what another was in or in some extravagant robe that was too much even for any setting that a fancy robe would be welcome in. Well, even if he had any guidance on how to dress, that guidance should have at least told him to brush his hair.

I’m telling you what he looks like now because I won’t get a chance to talk about it later and make it feel natural to the story. These things are quite tricky to do in a written medium, as you could imagine.

“Hello, Jean-Luc.” The man said with a warm smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Can I just highlight how funny [‘Commander Riker – get rid of the trombone.’ Said the note.] is out of context, because it still makes me laugh.


	2. Q is Here Now

The car came to a halt, almost spinning as it did so. A car behind him screeched to an equal stop, and the driver of another called out _‘asshole!’_ as it sped past. Picard panted, searching the back of his car for the man. Empty. There was nobody there. 

“Look, Jean-,” came the voice from the passenger seat. The owner of the voice wasn’t able to finish before Picard’s elbow rammed right into his face as he turned around to face him in shock. 

The man stubbled in the front seat with a quiet yelp, holding the handle on the ceiling with one hand and the door handled with the other. He looked at Picard, shocked and beginning to bleed from his nose. Picard mirrored the expression, before screaming for him to ‘get the HELL out of [his] car.’

The other man seemed to almost clip out of the front door as he attempted to leave out of the open window. It hadn’t of been opened a couple of seconds ago. 

Picard stared at the passenger door, opening and closing his eyes to try and establish that he was awake. He was safe. He wasn’t being carjacked. The man was gone. Time to leave as fast as possible. He caught his breath and put the car into drive, getting out of the way of the traffic jam that was forming behind him. 

The voice returned from the back seat. “Anyways, as I was saying-“

Picard stopped the car again, but he didn’t look back. His grip on the steering wheel was almost enough to break the thing in half. “Who the hell are you? How are you doing that?” Picard demanded. 

“Q.”

‘Baffled’ would be an understatement. “What? That’s not an answerer.” 

Q rolled his eyes. “Yes, it is.” 

Picard stumbled over trying to find something good to say. “Well - get out!” He settled with. 

“Jean-Luc, I’m not armed or anything. I just want to talk to you.” 

“I don’t! Get out of my car or I’m calling the police.”

‘Q’ sighed. “You can’t just punch your problems away, Jean-Luc. I’m not a problem.”

“I can very well try.”

“Mon ami, look at me.”

Picard blinked and turned his head just enough to see Q lying in the back as if it was a fainting chair all to himself. He looked away and then kept on driving, his eyes both on the road and the other man in the rear-view mirror at the same time. He veered into a fast food drive-in and turned on the radio to a generic pop song, tapping on the steering wheel to the beat as he waited in line. If he was being held hostage it might be smart to go somewhere with lots of cameras and witnesses. 

Q sat up and leaned towards the front. He put his elbow on the headrest of the passenger seat and looked at Picard. His face and stance was friendly, or at least what Q considered ‘friendly’ to be. Picard certainly didn’t consider it to be friendly. 

“Can I just get a large black coffee, please? No sugar.” He asked the woman at the first window. 

The worker rang in the order. “Was that it?”

Picard looked at Q, Q smiled, and then he looked back at the worker. “Yes, just one thanks.”

“She can’t see me, yaknow, just you,” Q commented, the smile still there. 

Picard didn’t respond, he just tapped his card to pay and drove his car to the next window. 

“Ignoring me won’t get me to go away, I need to talk to you.”

Picard took the coffee with a smile. He drove to the car park, parked by the back, and took the lid off the coffee. There was a street light right above him that had a CRT camera mounted to it. In a move that could be only accomplished by the aid of decades of drinking beverages hotter than this, Picard downed the whole coffee in a single go, finished by the time Q had climbed, not teleporting or just getting out and walking to the other door, into the passenger seat. Picard, again, didn’t look at him. 

“Jean-Luc-“

“Please go away.” 

Q sighed. It wasn’t a disappointed sigh, but it was almost one that made him sound love-stuck. Maybe that wasn’t the tone he was aiming for, but that’s what you could hear. “At least sit-down and listen to what I have to say.” Q snapped his finger and the coffee cup instantly filled back up. This caused Picard to jump, spilling the hot coffee all over himself. In the two moments of panic that he had to try and process what had just happened he was trying to get out the car and push the hot liquid off himself. Q leaned back in the passenger chair and snapped his fingers again, cleaning up the mess completely. 

Picard held onto the top of the car, his chest and thighs were warm but completely dry. He looked around to see if anybody had noticed before slowly leaning back into the car, watching Q scratch his cubicles. 

“Be careful, that stuff’s hot,” Q said, completely dismissing what had just happened. 

In a moment of pure, unfiled stress, Picard reached back into the car and grabbed Q by his lapel. Q looked surprised, blinking in response. The fabric that he was dressed in was soft, and it was absolutely real. “What do you want? What the hell are you?” Picard said quietly with a snarl, as if he was expecting police to appear at any given moment and take him away for acting insane. 

“Q. I told you that already.”

“Is that your name or who you’re with?” 

“Yes,” Q replied. “All the Q are called ‘Q.’ it’s just what we do. It’s like the Vulcans from Vulcan who speak Vulcan.”

“Why. Why would you do that.” Picard said more as a statement than a viable question. 

“Who knows? It does save on name tags, though.” Q joked. 

Picard got the feeling that he was joking, but didn’t let go. Q put his hands up in surrender. “This is going to be hard for you to comprehend, but you don’t belong in this, reality, or whatever it was.” It seemed like ‘reality’ wasn’t the right word, but it was the word that he was using. 

Once more, Picard didn’t say anything. 

“I thought you were usually more a tea person,” Q commented after a few moments of quiet. 

“Generally, yes.” 

Picard let go of Q’s jacket and fell back into the driver’s seat. The music was still playing. 

“Do you want more coffee?”

“No.”

Q opened the passenger door, went around the front of the car, and crouched beside Picard. Picard saw that he was doing this, and closed the door on him, locking it. Q just stood up and leaned into the window that was now magically open. After a second or two of thinking he put out his hand, “Nice to meet you, Jean-Luc, you don’t seem to remember me at all.” 

Picard just looked at him, not wanting to give the entity his hand. 

“Oh you’re such a sour puss,” Q commented, disappointed the other man. “Let’s get breakfast.”

“I have to go home, thank-you. It’s far too late.” 

“No you don’t,” Q replied. “Mon ami, Consider me a friend from another time and place, and the friend that’s here to bring you back to where you’re supposed to be.” 

Picard sat upright in his car, rolled the window up, and began to reverse out. Once Q was out of view he teleported back into the front seat. Once again Picard stopped the car, causing both of them to be jolted forward. 

“If that’s how it’s going to be, then fine,” Q said, snapping his fingers. 

Picard put his hands on the tab- table. There was a table before him. There shouldn’t be a table and yet suddenly there was. He looked around frantically to try and figure out where he was – but all he was able to focus on was Q with his hands behind his head. “What the hell-“

“Shush now, if you keep on stressing out like this you’re going to give yourself a heart attack. And I don’t think that little pacemaker of yours will like that all that much.” 

Picard stood up, the sound of his chair falling to the ground caught the attention of the other patrons. 

“We’re in the-“

“Yes. Yes, we are.”

Picard kept on standing, looking out for his car. It was parked in the spot that he had parked it before he had attempted to reverse out of. 

“Sit down mon am-“

“Why do you keep on calling me that?”

“Because we are?” Q replied in a very ‘duh’ tone of voice.

“I find that hard to believe.” 

“It’s all in the subtext.”

Picard gave him a leer and slowly sat back down. “What the hell is going on?”

Q exhaled as he fixed his posture. “Let me try and think up a way to explain it in a way that your fleshy monkey brain can understand,” he mused as he fiddled with the napkin dispenser, “Okay so, you know the nexus-“ Q stoped, “no you wouldn’t. That hasn’t happened for you yet, now has it?”

Picard just looked at him. 

Q groaned. “You experience time all linear, that's such a bore.” 

“Are you saying that you don’t?”

“Nope.” Q let go of the napkin dispenser and let it float in the air before his hands. “See, look,” the dispenser suddenly sliced liked an MRI machine’s scan as the splices stayed hovering. 

Picard looked around to see if anybody was watching, but nobody seemed to care. 

“You see time like _this_ since you're only preceeving it as a 3rd-dimensional being,” Q explained, letting a layer at a time float above the others. The layers then seemed to all clip together in a ball - the best way to explain it was when you go to randomly generate a rubber duck but the computer gives you 40,000 of them at once. “And this is more or less how _I_ can experience it, if I ever need to do so.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Picard asked, voice going into a whisper. “And why rubber ducks?”

The napkin dispenser came back together and fell back into Q’s hand. “Oh, nothing, and I’ll explain the duck thing later. I’m just making a point.” 

“I think you’ve made it already,” Picard said quietly. 

“Are you hungry?”

“No, not really.” 

Two plates of food manifested before them, a breakfast burger for Picard and some hotcakes for Q. There were also drinks along with the meals, the cup that Picard got his coffee in being the same one that he had bought back at the drive-through. 

“Dig in,” Q said, opening up the Styrofoam container. “I know humans like to eat a lot.”

“You didn’t pay for any of that.”

“Uhgh, fine,” Q complained as a handful of notes and couple of coins fell into the tip jar with a ‘clunk.’ “Happy now?” He picked up his milkshake and mumbled something along the lines of ‘I was the one who made it all, anyways’ into it before taking a drink.

“Kookyburger doesn’t usually have a tip jar.”

“Well It does now, Jean-Luc, it does now.” 

Picard poked at his food. He honestly wasn’t hungry since he had eaten right before he left, regardless of what was going on around him. He was pretty sure Kookyburger didn’t even serve breakfast this late. 

“Anyways, as I was saying,” Q said as he realised as to why he didn’t bother eating, putting the fork down (mush you move through your body? No thanks,) “Let me try and explain what’s going on.”


	3. What's Going On?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Q explains the backstory to the best of his abilities.

“This all happened – what you would call – a week ago. As far as I'm aware nothing was going on in your little life, so I decided to stop by.”

“Like you did just now?” Picard asked. If this was how Q usually ‘stoped by,’ he was hoping that Q didn’t do it often. 

“More-or-less. Although you usually don’t just go and elbow me in the face when I visit.” 

“Why _would_ you just turn up like that?”

“Because we’re friends?” 

“Friends?” 

“Yes!” Q said with a smile. 

“I find that very, very hard to believe,” Picard replied. That wasn’t how friends acted towards one another. He sighed. “Continue.” 

“Anyways, when I showed up the entire ship was a mess. Apparently a week ago all the important people from your little ship got taken by this, thing, and none of your useless subordinates have been able to get you out. As soon as they even bothered to notice me there they immediately blamed me. It was quite annoying, and they all seemed pretty angry for something so trial.”

“Subordinates? Ship?” Picard asked. 

“Yes?” Q said. “The ship that you run? You’re a captain. Or really, you’re supposed to be, instead of whatever this _is.”_

Picard scoffed at that. “I’ve been on a yacht or two, but never as a captain.” And a rowboat or two, but that was usually just in a single scull. 

Q laughed at that. “I’m not talking about some metal dingy that goes around on some kiddie pool full of water, I’m talking about a space ship. A proper ship.”

Now that was even more unbelievable. 

“A ‘space captain?’” Picard asked. He felt like he was in the middle of a bad improve session. 

“Now you’re getting it,” Q said with a smile, happy that he wouldn’t need to explain anything more. 

“Well,” Picard replied with a sigh, humouring him and the story, “It sounds like they had a reason to be mad, if they lost their ‘captain.’” 

“Yes, but _I_ had nothing to do with it! The thing that your ship encountered was some sort of energy leach crossed with a spatial anomaly. The only other things like it out of what humanoid life has already studied have only really had the power of an aggressive golf ball and localized to a single point in space. This new one seemed to be on the move looking for something, and the mortals that lived close it were worried about what it might do to them. Think of it a bit like a pimple in the 32nd dimension of your reality that’s ready to explode leading up to an important high school photo.” Q explained. “It was that sort of thing.”

Picard didn’t ask what that was supposed to mean.

“You and your crew had been given a mission to go and study it, apparently. You got a hook into it to try and get some readings, and then it took what it wanted. The rest of the ship is out there right now monitoring what little organic readings it can find to try and make heads or Zheap of who is alive or not.”

“So what about you? Where do you fit into this?” Picard asked. 

“Well, after getting the story out of them I ended up going in there myself to try and see what was going on. And when I _did,_ mind you, I find that you’re driving around in some old automobile.” Q did not include the two days he spent checking everywhere he could think of to try and find the captain to no success. In finding Picard Q had actually just been doing the Q equivalent of walking past. “Honestly, Jean-Luc, I expected you to be at least a little interesting while in this little pocket universe of yours, not some nobody heading towards a quiet retirement.” 

“Thank you,” Picard said. 

“That wasn’t a compliment.” 

“I find it quite hard to tell with you, to be completely honest.” 

Q made a kissy face, his elbows on the table and his chin on his knuckles.

Picard poked at the breakfast burger a little bit more. “So, I guess now you’re on an epic quest to find the rest of the displaced space crew, correct?” 

“Yes,” Q said. This Picard was a lot easier to deal with than how he normally was. “You and your crew should be honoured right now, me spending all of this time and energy just to get things back to normal.” 

It was Picard’s turn to laugh. It wasn’t the response that Q was at all expecting. 

Q’s face dropped a little. “What’s wrong? Don’t you believe me? What else do you want from me?” 

“Well, obviously not.” Picard caught himself a little in the chuckle. “I’m sorry but these are the types of things that somebody who’s not the most stable in mind says to try and get money off a poor passably. Or to get them into some sort of strange cult.” 

Q did a semi-gasp, putting a hand on his chest. _“Picard!_ I would never.” 

“Mhm-hum,” Picard said. “And, oh it’s all in my –“ Picard stopped when we noticed a bag on the chair next to him. He felt the bag – it was his normal one. 

“The one in your car, right? By the passenger seat?”

Picard looked back at Q. “Do you always teleport things around like that?”

“It’s easier and faster.”

“Is it now?”

“Well, it’s better than getting up, getting out your keys, walking to your car, getting the bag out, locking the car back up, and coming back.”

Picard disagreed. 

“And besides, we’re in the middle of a conversation here.” 

Picard flipped through one of the notebooks, giving Q an open page. Q took it, not really knowing what he should have been looking at. 

“What is this? What are you giving me now?” Q asked.

“Something little that I’ve been working on and off for a while. It’s a science fiction story, hopefully one day I could get it all serialized. Your story just reminds me of it.”

Ah yes, the book of the hour. 

Q gave him a look, taking the notebook. “Since when did you get into science fiction? That’s not like you.”

Picard gave him a shrug. “Oh, classical science fiction is always wonderful to read. I’m quite a fan of the worldbuilding and life on a space ship, largely.” 

You have to remember for the Picard that Q was talking too, the sort of world that you can see in the 24th century was historic fiction to him. If the two of them had found themselves in the 1940s, Picard likely wouldn’t be as into wartime fiction as the current Picard was. Q just had to accept that he very well might be interested in science fiction now. He can deal with that. 

Q almost seemed, well he was very impressed. The notebook was littered with rough plot outlines, annotated and all. It took him nanoseconds to read through it after being made aware of its existence, and a lot of what happened seemed to be very loose reports over events that had occurred on the Enterprise-D, largely because he was the one to cause all of it to happen and he already knew about them. 

He couldn’t give Picard all the credit, oh no. Some details where just so incredibly wrong it was laughable. It was like he was worried about getting sued for copyright by himself. ‘Space Patrol.’ Pffth. doesn’t he apriciate how much work Q had to put in just to make sure it wasn’t called that? The captain of this fictional ship was also all wrong – if the Q had a word for ‘self-insert,’ Q might have said he was highly avoiding accidentally writing one. Nerd. 

“Well,” Q coughed, “clearly whatever happened, you can at least remember something of normality,” Q said. “This useable.” 

“Uh-huh,” Picard replied, hand out to take the book back. He just wanted to go home and leave this crazy man here. “Look, ‘Q,’” He said, putting the notebook back and getting up to leave, “It’s been nice talking to you, but I really must be getting home.” 

“Home? Picard, we have work to do.” 

“No.”

Q blinked. “No?” Q wasn’t all that used to people just, saying ‘no,’ like that. Usually, they were angry with him at least when they said it. Picard just sounded disappointed. 

“Goodbye, Q.” Picard said as he headed towards the door. Q appeared in front of him with another ping. 

“You really don’t believe me, do you?” Q asked, practically pleading at this point. 

“Quite frankly I do not,” Picard replied. “Now, I would appreciate you trying this little stunt with somebody else – perhaps another one of the missing ‘crew?’” 

Q seemed flabbergasted. “I haven’t been able to locate them! That’s what I need you for. Trust me, I would love to just be able to snap my fingers and gather them all, but I can’t. I’ve tried that already. This field has to be interfering with what I’m able to do.”

“A limit to your powers?” Picard asked, clearly growing impatient. He didn’t know what Q was or how he was doing all of this, and quite frankly, he didn’t care. If he was some sort of god, he wasn’t a very good one. 

That seemed to be offended at that. “Excuse me! This isn’t really my full area of expertise. I didn’t make this _thing,_ and I have no idea who did or frankly how it even works.” It was sort of impressive that Q, whether he even realised it or not, was being so open right now. 

“I still don’t know who you are talking about, or any actual real space officers for that matter,” Picard said with a sigh. “Maybe if you had a list of who I’m supposed to be looking for I might be able to point you in some sort of direction, but you don’t.”

Picard’s notebook appeared back in his hands with the snap of Q’s finger. “But Picard, you _do,”_ Q said with a smile. 

Picard looked back in the notebook very carefully. New annotations had now been added, this time in what looked like quill-and-ink calligraphy. The calligrapher had clearly put in the effort to add little hearts of the dots of the I’s. 

“You know these people, you’ve even _seen_ them.” Q put his hand on Picard’s shoulder. Picard brushed it off. “I have a feeling that they might not be all that far away,” Q said, that smile still stuck to his face. “What do you say we go and look for them together? A bit of a ‘boy’s quest?”’

Picard closed the book and walked out the door. 

* * *

After a short walk alone in the freezing car park, Picard sat back down in the driver’s seat and picked his keys out of his pocket. He started the car and went to reverse out of the parking lot. Of course, Q was sitting in one of the back seat, his elbow on the window. 

Picard stopped reversing. He sighed. “You’re not going to leave me alone now, are you?”

Q smiled. “No, dear.” 

The car was turned off. He put his head on the steering wheel. “If I help you, will you leave me alone after?” 

“If we get this sorted, this whole world won’t exist anymore. You’ll be back on your ship and you can go back to your miserable little life on-board it.”

Q was bad at not being constantly condescending, but right now he was honestly trying his best. 

“And if we don’t?” 

“Well, I guess you’ll last in here for as long as it takes for it to completely kill you, or you’ll just live for the next,” Q seemed to pause to remember how long humans usually live for, “couple of years or so living in a cute little historical city with your equally just as little book series to keep you happy. Remember, I have eternity, but you do not.” 

Picard took his head off the steering wheel and exhaled. “Alright, I’ll humour this.”

Q smiled. “That’s the spirit.” 

Q was suddenly in the passenger seat. Picard jumped. “Alright! First rule! No teleporting while the car is in motion!” Picard ordered, feeling like he was to break.

Q was suddenly in the back seat again. “I can manage that.” 

Picard leered at him. “You’re going to get us both killed doing that.” 

“A simple car crash isn’t enough to rid of me.”

“It’s enough to get rid of _me.”_

“Don’t worry, mon ami, I’ll make sure that it doesn’t.”


	4. We’re Not Supposed to Be Having Foreshadowing Dreams Just Quite Yet

Q didn’t know exactly where he had ended up, but he knew that he was there.

The scene before was unfished, like a location in a dream or something outside of your peripheral vision. It was like the Kookyburger that he had his meeting with Picard in recently, but not quite. It was difficult to figure out what was going on or what time it was, but ‘unfinished’ still very much worked as the best word to use as a starting point.

The patrons of the establishment seemed to exist as placeholders for something better. Expect, that Q noticed eventually, for one humanoid that was over by one of the booths, putting the final touches on something.

She looked all human, somewhere between 9 and 20. Q was hopeless at guessing ages, but he could tell that it was somewhere in the ‘not an adult, but not a child’ range that organic life usually goes though every now and then. Her hair was long and brown, and her eyes the same. Very average in all regards, and in just a simple t-shirt and jeans.

“Excuse me?” Q said as he tried to get this girl’s attention with a call out to her. She didn’t even flinch. Q walked up in front of her, standing between her and the table she was fixated on. Q snapped his fingers, but that did nothing. He hadn’t snapped them to do anything but to get her attention, but he was still disappointed.

Q walked away from her and out of the joint. The outside wasn’t an outside, but white void. He knew his voids very well, and it had been a while since he had been in a void quite like this. Q turned around and looked at the Kookyburger. _It _was the only thing that existed in this, well whatever it was, this pocket of reality seemed to be nothing more than it. He walked back in, the windows from the inside showing what the outside should have been like as if a texture of outside had been placed over them.

The girl was still there, matictually fixing the clothing of a young couple who were paused in the middle of chatting about something unimportant. Q walked up to the three of them. This couple wasn’t quite all there, it was like looking like a pair of display mannequins. From one side they seemed fleshed out and real, but in walking around them that was clearly not the case. They only existed how they needed to.

‘Wasn’t there’ didn’t seem like the right word, ‘didn’t exist’ seemed better. They were just a bit of set dressing for a scene that supposed to unfold. Q could tell that the girl was very real, but she wasn’t exactly there, either. Not like he was, anyways. It was a strange effect.

Q went over and watched the girl work some more. It wasn’t the quick action of a Q, but more that of an unorganized lifeform trying to brainstorm an idea. It was like he wasn’t meant to be there watching, and like one that a human might get when you need to do your makeup at the same time that somebody taking a bubble bath. Sure there is bubbles to cover everything - but it’s still weird.

I suppose this all would be a lot easier to describe if you and I where both multi-dimensional beings like Q was – or at least seeing what he was seeing. Instead, you just get me, saying the same thing over and over in slightly different ways to try and push the effect.

Q decided to get her attention again.

“Hello?” He said, putting his hands on his hips. “Are you listening to me?”

Nothing.

“Where are we?” Q asked. It then occurred to him that he had never really asked such a question like that before – only as a rhetoric. _How could he have not know? That was like, his whole thing! _Q put a hand out and shook her shoulder.

Whatever spell the girl was under suddenly broke like a cup knocked off a table. There wasn’t a fight or a flinch, but you could see it in her that she now knew that Q was standing next to her.

The room grew cold and Q felt small as she stared down at him, it all seemed to tilt like a badly done dolly zoom. Q feel to the floor, trying his best to get his footing as everything warped and morphed below him. The girl just blinked. “Go away,” she said, her voice an oddly calm, “I’m trying to work.”

Everything seemed to shatter as reality folded into itself into a rubber duck. Q tried to catch himself, keeping his form as human as possible, but failed. The best that he was able to could be described as ‘zygote’ or ‘biblical angel with extra steps,’ but even then it was a mess.

Everything began to fade to black, the sound of an alarm clock seemed to come from all around. louder, louder, louder until he had to force his hands (or whatever was left of them) around his head to try and make it stop. Q was still falling, but the human figure somehow didn’t change, staring him down from a large hole up above. The eyes were bleak, they were not looking at Q – or perhaps looking into him, but most likely far beyond.

At that moment Q fell of the couch. His hands grappled with the wooden floor for a moment before realizing that he was on the floor. He should be on the floor, hang on. He sat up and looked around.

Small living room, a couch next to him and an old armchair by the window, a small tv by another wall that was hocked up a combination vcr/dvd player, nothing really worth noting other than a thin sword that was hung above the television set. There were a couple of photos on the same shelf as the tv, and two large bookshelves on either side. There was also a coffee table on the other side of Q, and it was a wonder that he didn’t fall onto it and crack his head open. He looked at the top of the coffee table, it was just had a couple of loose magazines and the tv remote. Q was in the lounge room of an old, unmarried man.

Q stood up, fixing his windbreaker as he did it. On a scale between ‘confused’ and ‘lost for words’ he was further towards the confused side.

Picard leaned in from the hallway, holding a mug of tea in one of his hands. “Good morning,” he said.

Q looked back at him. “What?”

“Or afternoon, I suppose,” Picard commented, looking at the clock on the wall.

“What happened?” Q asked, tucking his hands under his armpits as he did it.

“You fell asleep,” Picard informed, sounding uninterested in the whole ordeal.

Q looked at him as if he had suddenly turned into a heavily pregnant Ocampa. “What? I don’t sleep.”

“Well, you did.”

Q looked back at the couch. At some point, Picard had even given him a blanket to sleep with. He looked back at Picard. “I think I had a dream.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, that’s a perfectly normal thing to happen when one is asleep.”

“You don’t understand, mon Capitaine,” Q said, trying not to sound condescending as he walked toward Picard, “I do not ‘dream.’ I have no need for sleep, I do not even remember _going_ to sleep.”

Picard didn’t look up from his tea. “Oh, really?”

“Yes really! It feels like I’ve just jumped from us in the car to being here.”

“Not like your usual jumping around?” Picard asked, in clear reference to Q’s use of teleportation.

“….A little?” he said quietly, thinking about it harder, “But usually I know when I do it.” He didn’t like this, he didn’t like this vulnerable, out-of-his-element feeling that was creeping in through his gut, or lack thereof. “I suppose that I must have, yes. Don’t you have work to get too?”

“I took the day off.”

“What? Why?” Q asked.

“Because I’ve been having visions of a middle-aged man who can teleport around and is telling me that I’m a starship captain,” Picard said with the same enthusiasm as somebody who had to go and fold laundry, and Picard usually liked folding laundry.

Q rolled his eyes. “Oh, _pish_.”

Picard put the empty mug on the top of a bookcase. “Look, Q, either I almost died yesterday while driving and this is all a dream that I’m having to keep my brain alive or there really _is _something wrong with me. It couldn’t hurt to be checked out regardless. Besides, I’ve got other reasons to go and I don’t actually have any lectures to do today, just paperwork. I can do those at home,” he half-lied. He actually did have quite a lot of paperwork to catch up on, and he had been doing it. 

Q was almost dumfounded. “I don’t _believe _you!” he exclaimed with his arms flailing. “We’re talking about the fate of your crew and all you think about is doing homework! How can you be so uneasily boring and sensible?

Picard chuckled as he decided to take that as a compliment. “Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me! That’s not a good thing.”

“Alright, then,” Picard said as he walked away.

“No – wait – hang on,” Q stubbled before teleporting to the base of the stairs that Picard was already half down. “Where are you going?”

“I don’t have an appointment until 3, so I’m going to sort out a few things in the meantime,” Picard said as he made his way down into the house’s basement. He was carrying a large-ish wooden box of some kind that he had picked up from the hallway.

“Appointment?” Q asked.

“Yes,” Picard said as he went down the last couple of stairs, “I need to refill a prescription for my heart medication.”

“Heart medication? What’s wrong with it_ now?_”

“I’m getting old, and so is the heart.”

“Why don’t you just get another one?” Q asked. It seemed like a simple fix.

“I did,” Picard said, “that’s why I need the medication,” he explained as he put the box on the end of a pool table. “The last owner died quite a while ago in a motorcycle accident. Most of his organs could be salvaged and given to other’s who needed it, so that’s what they did. We were the same blood type, and I ended up with his heart.”

Q was horrified. “That’s revolting! And so barbaric!”

Picard shrugged. “I’m just thankful that I’m alive.”

That didn’t change Q’s disgusted reaction.

“Don’t touch it,” Picard said quickly, “I’m fine like this.”

There was a break in their conversation.

“You seem rather shaken up,” Picard said with an eventual sigh, “and it doesn’t quite suit you.”

Q looked back at him. “It doesn’t? It doesn’t feel like it suits me, to be honest.”

“What was that ‘dream?’” Picard bit the bullet and asked, saying ‘dream’ in the same way that Q had said before.

Q brought his hand to his face to think. “Do you know what ‘video game’ is?” He asked very carefully

“Yes. Yes, I do,” Picard answered with a bit of a laugh.

Q seemed to relax a little bit. “You know how in some games you can change what you want with them? Let you be creative with the set? Model things? Or pause and change layouts? Debugging modes? Like, oh I don’t know, in one those games where you can control tiny people? I’m sure those excited at this point in history.”

“I suppose so,” Picard replied, cutting Q’s ramble of trying to find examples off at the first break that he found. He wasn’t at all much of a ‘gamer,’ aside from a few puzzle or mystery games that he might touch on his phone when he was bored.

“It was sort of like that, but all wrong. Like somebody else was in charge of it all.”

Picard placed the box on the end of the pool table. “That just sounds to me like your powers, as much as I’ve seen on them. I assume you can do something alike that.”

Q looked at him. He didn’t have a good rebuttal to that aside from saying “It’s really not. It felt too, logical and stable - as if a mortal such as yourself had somehow created it. I don’t get the impression that another Q is involved in this at all.”

Picard opened the box he had carried down. There was four bottles of wine inside, that and shredded brown paper and packing peanuts all around to keep it all safe.

“Wine?” Q inquired.

Picard nodded. “My brother runs the family winery. He usually sends me a couple of bottles each year.”

The bottle had a fancy label, ‘Picard’ was written on it in a fine cursive. Q picked up one of the bottles and looked it over – it had been bottled that year. “I’ve never understood this drink,” he said, “you keep it locked away to consume later while there are fresh amounts right there for consumption. I can’t see how drinking something old could be appealing.”

Picard had been putting the bottles on a shelf, that particular shelf already had a decent amount of Picard vineyard reds on it. Jean-Luc liked to keep one of the case every couple of years, they were somewhat mementoes for him, plus he was just the type to keep nice wine – he was basic enough. “They age when stored, it enriches the taste.”

“I suppose if you like drinking mould and stagnant water, that is,” Q quipped as he sat himself ontop of the table, his legs dangling off it with a playful swing.

“Oh well, then,” Picard replied, “I suppose that’s just a mystery that humans get to keep.

Q looked again at the bottle in hand, and then four thin wine glasses appeared in the other – one between each finger. “Relax, Jean-Luc, I’ll replace it,” Q assured a concerned looking Picard. He held the bottle in his hand and then made it spin as he threw it up into the air an inch or so. When it came back to his hands he opened the cork with a fizz and filled two of the glasses enough for a taste. “I’ve still always thought this was rather silly, but here you go.”

“It changes how it tastes,” Picard explained again, trying to get a look at the aged bottle and it’s slightly faded label.

Q put the aged one down and opened up a second bottle from the case, pouring the contents in the two remaining glasses. “Well, let’s test that.”

Picard seemed quite sceptical, but he allowed it. “What did you just do?”

“Aged the bottle for a good hundred years or so by slowly the time around it. Very simple stuff. Plus, you can’t go and complain to me that it was somehow ‘ruined’ by being opened beforehand.”

Q picked up a glass of each in each hand and then took sips from both. “I see no difference,” he reported, sort of disappointed in the results. He stood up and put the glasses down as he did it. “Well then, that was a waste of my time.”

Picard took his own careful sips. “I think I can tell the difference,” he said, studying the flavours and smells of both.

“Well, not a complete waste of my time, then,” Q shrugged before he pulled himself up the steps 3 at a time. “But, if you want actual drinks, just ask me.”

“I’ll be sure that I will,” Picard replied, re-corking and setting the aged bottle aside in a small fridge that was next to the shelf.


	5. Rollcall

A Kookyburger in the early morning and that late of the night is exactly the same – time isn’t real anyways. This first bit of this chapter is set in the same Kookyburger as one a couple before, but in the mid-morning instead. There was a jukebox connected to a Spotify radio that corporate had requested that all Tom Jones recordings to be inaccessible to the public playing, a couple who had clearly been together for the whole night and are still yet to go back home or to sleep, a family that was coming back home from a camping trip and stopped to get food, an assistant manager asking around the staff as to where a tip jar had appeared from, and a group of three university students all having breakfast before class.

If you looked close enough at the last group, you could see three people by the names of Geordie LaForge, Data Soong, and Reginald Barclay having fairly standard pre-class-lets-get-burgers hangout while chatting together. This was a rather normal event for the small group of friends, but usually they would have work open at the same time around them.

Desmond ‘Data’ Soong, the ‘Data’ part being a nickname given to him early on that he didn’t object too, was in a slightly out-of-character heavy leather jacket that was full of quick, messy repairs next to neat proper ones, and was covered in paint marker graffiti and patches, a good deal of them themed around either cats or pride memorabilia. This was absolutely not the kind of thing that he usually wore or looked like the type of thing that he _would_ wear, but I would be a liar if I said that he couldn’t at least pull it off. His dark brown hair was tightly slickened back and he was eating a vegan breakfast burger. The jacket had originally belonged to one of his older brothers, but he had since moved on to a different jacket. LaForge was in a grey hoodie with his cane tucked in next to him and Barclay was in a button-up shirt, both had pancakes.

Barclay himself wasn’t eating all that much. He said that he had a stomachache, but whether that was a general ache that he usually got or a practically worse one is up to you to decide. He was the skinniest of the three, and looked like he hadn’t slept an hour in the last week. It wasn’t even close to exam block, he was just like that on his own.

A joke was passed among the group, everything seemed fine and dandy on that particular Wednesday morning.

Two police officers in full uniform came in by the front doors, there to get some coffee before their shifts started. The first was a taller Maori man with nice hair in a thin braid who was getting the drinks, the second was an officer who had only moved to the city late last week with a uniform hat. The second officer was a taller Caucasian man with short black hair and an equally short beard that matched. He had that smile and general demeanor to him that was quite indistinguishable from when he was flirting, he didn’t really mind having that sort of outwards vibe, it meant that he was on top of the situation at hand.

The officer’s handle was ‘William Riker,’ and was indeed the same trombonist that Picard had heard play the night before – he had even played on for quite a while longer after Picard had left. He told his partner what he wanted as the first went to go and order for the both of them, before he stood back and away from the counter, keeping a gentle watch over the whole establishment.

Riker’s focus zoomed over to the three students that had just been introduced. Data’s back was to the door, a patch of a cat with laze beam eyes was on show half on top of a painted crest.

Riker recognized that jacket that Data was wearing, he recognized the painted crest on the back of it, and he recognized the pale-to-a-concern person that was in it; he had helped arrest the man recently and he knew for a fact he hadn’t gone out on bail yet. Riker went over to him.

“Excuse me,” the officer said as he stood over his target. Data turned to look at him, only confirming Riker’s suspicions. “Don’t I know you?”

Data looked the other man up and down, police uniform and all. “No,” he said straightly. Data did not.

“Don’t play smart with me,” Riker bit back as he put his hand on a studded shoulder, “You shouldn’t be out here.”

LaForge’s face scrunched up a little under a pair of dark sunglasses, he didn’t need to be able to see it to know what was going on and this wasn’t the first time he had experienced this happening to his friend. Barclay put down his drink and looked at LaForge.

Data stood up to turn and face Riker, Riker was taller. “Can I help you, officer?” Data asked.

“’Soong,’ isn’t it?” Riker accused, “You go by ‘Lore?’ I’ve heard you’re trouble around these parts.”

“Lore is my twin brother, he is identical to me,” Data explained, extremely calmly. Well, not ‘twin,’ exactly, they were 2/3rds of a set of identical triplets, but that would have been too wordy to explain in the moment.

Riker seemed confused. Data seemed to be more than indifferent to the situation.

“….If that was the case,” Riker asked, still not fully believing him, “why would you be walking around in public in his gang memorabilia? Isn’t that just asking for trouble?” Riker asked.

“No sir,” Data replied. “The insignia present on this old coat is currently out of date, and they are aware of who I am and that I am not Lore; and am not involved with The Borg in the slightest. I can show you my identification if you need it.”

Riker blinked, clearly thrown off his rhythm. “I- I don’t want to ‘victim blame’ here kid but that just seems like a bad idea.”

Data nodded. “Yes officer, in a sense, but other police officers _also_ know who I am.” There was an etch of very professional sarcasm in his voice, like as if he was supposed to be giving a shit-eating grin as he said it, but his face and body were as straight as somebody who was trying to stay engaged in a meeting that’s gone an hour over it’s allocated time.

Riker’s partner watched what was going on from the background while sipping one of the coffees. Officer Worf Morgison wanted to see how Riker would handle something like this first-hand.

“Okay, okay now,” LaForge said as he stood up, holding onto the side of Data’s arm. The two of them had been sitting next to each other on the same side of the booth. “We’re sorry about this, officer, really. Sit down,” He ordered to Data quietly.

Riker gave up with a soft leer and walked back to his partner, looking at Data a few times as he did it, a question was asked to him and an answer was given with the shake of a head, and then coffee handed over before the two of them leaving, Riker looking back one more time as he left through automatic doors. It didn’t feel like this wasn’t going to be the last time that they would all see each other.

“What the hell are you _doing_?” LaForge asked with a hiss.

“I like this jacket,” Data replied. There where clearly something else going on. 

“You didn’t have to make a huge scene about it, jeeze! What’s gotten into you all of a sudden?”

“I do not….. know,” Data said softly to himself.

Barclay seemed to zone out a little. “Something’s wrong,” he said.

The other two looked at him. “Yeah, Data just picked on by a cop, I’m still feeling a little stressed.”

“No, that’s not it,” Barclay replied, holding onto a plastic fork as tightly as he could manage without snapping it in half.

Data began to sit down, one of his legs out in the process of crossing it over the other. A worker in a Kookyburger uniform walked past with trays of rubbish in her hands and walked past at just the right time to trip over Data’s leg. Rubbish split onto the tiled floor as she lost her footing. Data caught her just in time, bright pink hair flying all over her face.

The woman herself was young, she looked like she would still get carded when trying to go into a bar. Her hair was a soft pastel pink with dark brown roots and was large and full of hair clips, she was very clearly not following the uniform regulations with having it out like that. Her glasses where round and only half on her face after that close call with the floor.

The ‘Ah! This Is Not A Good Thing’ detector inside of Barclay began to go off like a fire alarm. He didn’t say anything when it sounded, but he did become slightly more aware of what was going on around him.

“Oh! I am so, so sorry!” The woman said quickly as she frazzled about, trying and not succeeding to make the situation better. She felt around Data’s body as she got her footing back, he was a lot fitter than you would have excepted him to have been. 

Data just looked back, making sure she was all alright. He put his hands on his torso in much the same way, feeling the same muscles that she had done. He didn’t quite know how to feel about it, but he didn’t like it all that much.

The worker noticed Laforge’s hoddie, it was a ‘class of [insert year a few years in the future here]’ one with his University’s (well, it was a ‘College,’ really, but that sort of thing is determined by ones native venatucual and since I personally say ‘University’ that’s what I will be using for this story, if you will let me do so) logo on the front. “Hey, we’re in the same year,” she said with a smile. “What do you guys study?”

Data looked away from his chest and to the worker. “Electrical engineering,” he answered, “we have a workshop in a couple of hours.”

The worker looked back to Data. “Ahh, that’s real fancy - I do accident history. I usually have a lecture on right now but it was canceled ‘cause my teacher was sick, so it’s good I’m not gonna miss anything when I just watch it online,” she said. The second half of that ramble was with a bit of a laugh. The worker had a teeny tiny bit of a Southern American accent.

LaForge thought for a moment. “…….Really?”

Barclay dug himself deeper into his own jacket as his stomachache only got worse. Data picked up the empty milkshake cups and burger wrappers that worker had dropped and handed them back to her.

“I’ll - uh – yeah. I’ll let you guys get back to your food, now, it was nice meeting you,” the worker said, getting more flustered yet simultaneously excited with every passing moment. She dropped the rubbish in one of the bins and ducked into the staff room.

Data watched her go as he slowly sat down in his seat for the second time, Barclay just stuffed the last of his food into his mouth to try and settle his nerves. Everything was wrong about this – he missed the Enterprise.

* * *

If you ever wanted to see Q close to his breaking point, just make him wait for something. Or really, go to a doctor’s waiting room after telling him plenty of times not to come, have him follow you anyways because he has the same attachment issues as a newborn duck, tell him again that you’ll be stuck there waiting for the doctor for a while, having him know that and be sure that he knows that with the alternative being that he can just go home and not have to be there, and then wait another twenty minutes to see him lying on a seat upside down trying to think up the best ways to smite the entire pharmaceutical industry. Picard just kept on trying to read his book.

“Why do you have to be here. You have the little form. Just get more of the pills,” Q half asked, half complained. His shirts and jacket had fallen upwards (downwards? It was in whatever direction that gravity worked), and you could see his naval and a bit of the body fur around it. What a god was doing with a belly button was anybody’s guess.

“I have to go to checkups for it regularly,” Picard explained quietly, not looking up from his Dick Tracey book. “Sometimes after the examination the dosage in my prescription changes.”

Q made a noise that was a cross between a huff and a grown.

“I told you not to come.”

“We need to stick together.”

Picard turned a page. “Alright, then.” If anybody had asked if the two of them where together Picard would have given a resounding ‘I have never seen this man in my life.’

Q kept on sulking, making a ‘bhurr’ sound as he did it. “All you mortals do is just… wait. Wait to die, wait for food, the buss, doctors. What else?”

“For you to be quiet.”

“Oh shush.”

The door to one of the offices opened, a mother and child left with the doctor waving the young daughter away. The doctor was a middle-aged woman with big red hair that wouldn’t have looked out of place in an 80’s romantic comedy about a businesswoman who had been moving up the corporate ladder too fast and left no time to find any love for herself. She checked a tablet in a blue case, “Jean-Luc?” she called out.

Picard piped up and closed his book, putting it back into his bookbag. Q also piped up, turning himself around and up, his shirt still needing to be pulled back down. “Is that us? Has the time finally come?”

Picard stood up and then leaned towards Q. “This is _my_ appointment; you’ll have to wait out here.”

Q’s eyes suddenly changed to some level of despair, the rest of his face not changing away from the excitement. ‘Don’t leave me’ he mimed as Picard went up to the doctor.

“Good afternoon,” Dr Crusher said with a smile as she closed the office door behind the two of them.

“You too,” Picard replied as he took his coat off and put it by the seat there for patients to sit on. It was a slightly nicer version of the ones outside.

“It’s just a checkup and a renewal of this script, correct?” the doctor asked as she looked over her tablet once again.

Picard nodded with a casual ‘m-hm.’

“That shouldn’t take too long. I’ll take your blood pressure and a listen, then.”

Picard rolled up his sweater sleeve. The doctor’s office was nice, anatomy posters and a few pull-apart models, photos of what Picard assumed to be the doctor’s son in a military cadet uniform, Q looking at the photos-

Wait- hang on.

Crusher screamed as soon as she noticed him up close to her and punched Q in the face, purely out of instinct. She didn’t know whether to apologize or yell at him first, so she did neither, just keeping her hands over her mouth in shock. It wasn’t like her at _all_ to react like that.

“Why does everybody keep doing that?!” Q asked with a yell, his hand over his own mouth. There was a bit of blood coming out of a bit cheek. “Am I _that_ punchable all of a sudden? Is it the Fluttershy on my shirt? Because I can change who’s on it.”

“How did- how do you get in here?” the doctor asked. “I-I’m sorry - I’m so sorry I shouldn’t have done that.”

Q rubbed his face. “No - it’s fine, really. I’ve had worse.”

Picard braced himself. Did he say anything? Did he do anything?

You could see the gears start to turn in Q’s head, his eyes growing at the same speed as his smile. “Oh -oh -oh! This is _fantastic_!” he said with that now-huge smile and his hands out.

Dr Crusher had absolutely no context as to what was going on. She looked to Picard, who was just more embarrassed than anything.

“I’m sorry about him,” Picard said with a sigh.

“You know this man!?”

“Unfortunately.”

Q was still standing there looking like a 9-year-old who was just handed a credit card by a rich grandparent and then let loose in a toystore.

“Are you done?” Picard said, a little louder than he intended it to be, “Get _out _here.”

“This is Doctor Crusher-“

“I am _fully _aware of that.”

“I am, yes, that’s me,” Crusher said with a nod. Her ploofy ginger hair rolling over her shoulders.

“No- no you don’t understand this Jean-Luc,” Q said, his smile still there. “She’s one of the other members of the crew that I’ve been looking for. If you two already have a connection then I’m willing to bet that the others are not all that far away.”

“….What?” Crusher asked. “What is going on? What are you talking about?”

“Right! Yes, where are my manners?” Q said, settling himself down and putting out a hand to shake. “I’m Q.”

“And I’m going to call security,” Dr Crusher replied, shaking his hand with a forced smile.

It was a good thing that Picard was here to get new heart medication, because oh boy was he going to need it. “Look, Q, can you please just wait outside? This was supposed to be a privet appointment, I’ll explain this all to her.”

Crusher looked over to him, ready to send them both out. Q let go of the doctor and put his hands up in a relaxed surrender. “Alright,” he said, trusting in his word before leaving with an open and then a click of the office door.

Dr Crusher looked like she had been hit by a truck on her way to work and only just now remembered. If this story was being told in a drawn or animated medium her hair would have turned into just one big giant knot of stress. She rested on the side of an elevated hospitable bed in one of the corners of the room and exhaled.

There was a pause.

“I can still call security,” the doctor said in a sigh.

“I wouldn’t bother,” Picard replied in the same tone. “It’s not worth the trouble. Look, I can leave and then make another appointment with somebody else tomorrow, I’m sorry about him.”

There was another pause that lasted a beat and a half longer than it needed too.

“What did that man want?” Crusher asked. “Do you know what he was talking about?”

Picard rolled his sleeve back down. “Yes. It’s frankly just a ridiculous story. I’ve only followed along so far because he’s relatively harmless, despite being a lot to deal with.”

“Try me,” Dr Crusher said, "He seemed eager to meet me."

* * *

It felt like several hours before Picard left the doctor’s office, but only because Q was not very patient. It really couldn’t have been more than ten or twenty minutes.

“We’re going,” Picard ordered the half-asleep Q as he walked past, putting his arm through his coat as he did it.

Q stood up and followed after him, “What happened? How did it go?”

Picard thought for a second or two to try and think up the best way to condense their conversation. “I was able to obtain the doctor’s personal email and send her over what I’ve written up on the computer of my work after showing an excerpt on my phone of it –“

“Saved on a cloud?”

“- Of course, I’m not a fool – after telling her my understanding of the situation,” Picard got in line to pay for the appointment, “She said that she will look over it and contact me when she’s in her off-hours. Either way, I also have a psyche’s recommendation, as well as the script that I came in here, so that should help with the insurance if I end up going.”

Q stepped in in front of him. “You’re just going to _walk_ _away_ from her?”

“Look, Q. Dr Crusher has work to do, and I’m not going to just go and harass the poor women over something like this, if she wants to contact us further on the matter that’s her choice. Are we all in immediate, Lovecraftian-level cosmic and mortal danger?”

“…… No. I suppose that we’re not,” Q pouted.

“Well then. We know who she is and we know _where_ she is, that is enough for now. If something comes later up we can always just come and collect her,” Picard reasoned as he touched his debit card to pay with a beep.


End file.
